Friday, August 1, 2014

The Leader

... "He spread fear in the minds of our enemies, he gives greater strength than a thousand defenders and ten million goalies." — Ri Myong-guk, North Korea goalkeeper ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

God and Kim Jong-il did not come to South Africa. However, each of the teams -- who competed in Sokkerstad, which is similar to the African pot -- should exert whatever force, including the occult to win. For North Korea goalkeeper Ri Myong-guk, the occult was his late head of state, Kim Jong-il. "He's our most important player," he said of the ailing leader who on that night probably was lying at the Presidential Palace in Pyongyang, 12,447 kilometers away from Johannesburg.

Then, on the eve of the biting cold, Ri and ten of his friends struggling. Hundreds of millions of viewers around the world watched how the North Korean team playing with persistent, neat, effective. But they were against Brazil, five-time world champion. They lost 2-1, although they lost with pride, because they had demonstrated their impressive game. Dunga, the Brazilian team manager, admitted, "It's hard to face an opponent who is so persistent and so defensive." Ri -- who led the back line -- said, "While keeping the goal, it's like keeping the gate of my homeland."

The sentence was hyperbolic, indeed. We do not know whether Ri is sincere or not. The Football World Cup has a peculiar power. It can make a person (player or spectator) feel part of a fiery large families, from hair to toenails in support of a national team. When before the game, Aegukka -- the North Korean national anthem -- was sung, ("unwavering determination, linked with truth be strapping into the world."), Jong Tae-se -- player number 9 -- was crying.

Between sincere and unsincere, between overexpression and not, it seems there is no clear line in North Korea.

North Korea is no longer a nation; it's a race. Marxism-Leninism has been transformed into a religion. As with religion, it formed a structure which glued by doctrine. Religion also needs a buffer and to link the parts of the building. For religion in general, the buffer is God. For the teaching of Juche -- as an ideology of North Korea -- the stone was Kim Il-sung. Once the old Kim's death, his son, Kim Jong-il replaced the role.

Thus, since their childhood, Koreans formed to adore Kim. A study cited by The Christian Science Monitor showed the enormity of the funds for it. While in 1990 the cost to the cult of the leader, comprising 19 percent of the national budget, in 2004 increased to 38.5 percent. In times of crisis, when the allocation for the defense and welfare of the people was reduced, funding for ideology schools actually rose. The costs including treatment for 30,000 Kim monuments, sports festivals, films, books, billboards, murals, and so on.

Especially for school education. Here, the indoctrination to worship the leader is very intensive: between 304 hours and 567 hours of lessons. The elementary school students have to study the history of childhood Kim Il-sung in 152 hours, and Kim Jong-il, too. At Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang there are six faculty which specifically teach the history and thought of the two Kim and Kim's son.

In the history of communist party rule, this is beyond measure. But something that is previously only found in the time of Hitler's Nazi and Mussolini Fascism it turns out can happen in the socialist camp. In the Soviet Union emerging the phenomenon of Stalin who led the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. In China: Mao Zedong, who became Chairman of the Party from 1943 to 1976.

About Stalin, a poet writing with other hyperbole:

Oh, the great Stalin
You fertilize the soil
You restore a century
You develop flowers in Spring

About Mao, a soldier who was appointed to be human role model by the Party, Li Feng wrote her diary consisting of 200,000 words. Almost all of them full of adoration:

"For me, the works of Chairman Mao is like food, weapons, and steering. We should eat and in war we must be armed. Without the wheel, we can not drive a car, and without studying the works of Mao Zedong then the person can't take a revolutionary career."

Perhaps humans always need worship: God, the Prophet, or the Leader. Maybe, cult is the response of the atmosphere to worry about disintegration.

But there is a powerful combination which causes cult for leader growing: a blend of political power and the words that supports it. But there are limits and dangers. When a series of words into doctrine to affirm a rule, and the doctrine becomes the slogan, and the slogan becomes incantation, the human will live alienated of the language process. Humans just memorize. Humans increasingly uncertain with the meaning of the spoken word. Humans are also increasingly less confident with the interpretation that comes from themselves, because the meaning is determined by the authorities. In turn, the rulers (the party elite, for example) are also experiencing alienation, because in the slogan uniformity they do not know where their words are.

As a result, eventually one word is needed: what is decreed by the Leader. Thus, hyperbole is born: the anxiety syndrome to the meaning, because the meaning is not controlled anymore. With excessive sentence, someone is trying to convince himself and his audience that the language should be given a little extra energy in order to return meaningful.

That's how Kim Jong-il appeared at the head and mouth of Ri Myong-guk. He is a worrisome, he is also soothing.
***

CZ

"Thank you for your perception! I like your romantic side, even if I do not always comment and I'm glad that you're in my circle of friends."(Courtesies by: Wolfgang A. Gerhardt)

Wolfgang A.Gerhardt : May be you like this Sunday collage

Cisca Zarmansyah : Before today, there never was a person doing this to me. You create a simple matter to look special. This is a special thing for me.

Cisca Zarmansyah : Thank you. I love it. I love you, my friend. ♥

CieL- FreYa Ceastle : Hmm, he's so nice...

"I am me.
In all the world,
there is no one else exactly like me.
Everything that comes out of me
is authentically mine,
because I alone chose it --
I own everything about me:
my body,
my feelings,
my mouth,
my voice,
all my actions,
whether they be to others or myself.
I own my fantasies,
my dreams,
my hopes,
my fears.
I own my triumphs and successes,
all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me,
I can become intimately acquainted with me.
By so doing,
I can love me
and be friendly with all my parts.
I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me,
and other aspects that I do not know
-- but as long as I am friendly
and loving to myself,
I can courageously and hopefully
look for solutions
to the puzzles and ways
to find out more about me.
However I look and sound,
whatever I say and do,
and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time
is authentically me.
If later some parts of how I looked,
sounded,
thought,
and felt
turn out to be unfitting,
I can discard that which is unfitting,
keep the rest,
and invent something new
for that which I discarded.
I can see,
hear,
feel,
think,
say, and do.
I have the tools to survive,
to be close to others,
to be productive,
and to make sense
and order out of the world of people
and things outside of me.
I own me,
and therefore,
I can engineer me.
I am me,
and I am okay."

VIRGINIA SATIR
(American Phychologist and Educator, 1916-1988)

About Me

"When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent. I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent. I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out. I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent. I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." - Martin Niemöller